...Life After Stillbirth...
Dealing with loss, infertility and learning to be foster carers to vulnerable children

Wednesday, 5 April 2017

On Loss ... and Gain

As I’d spoken about in a previous post I
have recently become a student again and am retraining as a
Psychotherapist. It still feels a little
bit unreal and very BIG but so far I’m enjoying it. I’m just nearing the end of my first year
which, incidentally, has flown by. Every
so often I’ll be reminded why I decided to embark on a career change and the
weekend’s training that has just passed has been no exception as we were
learning about grief, loss and bereavement.

Prior to the day itself I found
myself fantasising about breaking down – about not being able to cope and my
own grief overwhelming me. In my
fantasies I would run out of the room and leave the training centre realising
that actually I’m not cut out to be a psychotherapist after all. The familiar fear of failure leapt at me again. I had no idea how I would respond. I worried it could go two ways – I could
experience the reaction mentioned above, descend into panic and find myself
firmly back in the darkness of loss or I could breeze through the weekend not
feeling anything, rising above it all
and be able to leave saying ‘my grieving is done, I am restored’.

Neither happened.

I felt it. Actually I felt everything and familiar
feelings of loss and grief resurfaced throughout the day. It was tiring – but
not exhausting in the way I had feared.
It was sad and if I was someone who cried I’m sure I’d have shed a tear
... but that’s something else that needs work!
But I really felt it ... and I knew at that moment, more than I’d known
before, that I am making the right decision in this career change. Those feelings; the grief, the loss, the fear,
the devastation – they are all things that I am familiar with. They help me to empathise with people in
different situations and, I hope, have helped me to develop a sense of openness
and integrity that I will eventually be able to use to help other people.

A question was posed to us this
weekend; ‘can loss bring a gain; can it be transformative?’

I’ve spoken about this alot
throughout this blog – about the transformation in my life since Emilie
died. Would I have chosen that path for
myself? Not a chance. But it happened and we had to move
forward. We had to find the ‘new normal’,
work out what that meant for us and discover how to carry on being parents when
one of our children had died. In my
training notes I wrote the following:

“Moving forward in a new experience means leaving the old behind. The old pattern is gone forever. Every move forward means leaving something
behind and each new stage means loss in another area.”

This got me thinking about the
different losses we have experienced as a family – and I have experienced as an
individual. Even starting this training
meant a loss in another area. It meant
that I would never return to teaching.
Adopting our daughter meant that we had to leave our dreams of fostering
lots of children behind. Each new stage
means loss in another area. I have
reflected a lot on these different losses and am beginning to see real value in
acknowledging them and giving them the importance that they deserve.

I am not a stranger to loss. I have suffered years of infertility,
miscarriages and the stillbirth of my daughter.
My adopted daughter has Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Autism which is a
huge loss in itself. She has defied
expectations and is doing incredibly well yet seeing the other children in her
class make progress and meet their milestones whilst she is left behind is hard. There are simple losses like not being able
to go to the cinema as a family to see the latest films as she would not cope
with the crowds, the noise and the containment. Often, activities we have
planned are cut short when she has had enough.

There is loss surrounding Samuel
and the relationship we’d hoped he’d have with Emilie, had she survived. I feel this loss most when our daughter is
struggling; when she lashes out and hits him or is unable to engage with him as
she is overwhelmed and over-stimulated.
I see this loss so starkly in Sam as he takes himself off for some alone
time or sobs when she has broken one of his possessions. I long to be a ‘normal’ family – whatever that
is. And then I feel the joy of seeing
them play together, of seeing how much he adores her and how much she idolises
him. And there is the gain. They will never have a ‘normal’ relationship
and the gap between them will widen as they both grow older and he develops ‘typically’
yet their relationship is incredibly special because of that. When she is struggling and can’t make herself
understood Sam knows what she wants and what she is trying to say. We hope that he will be more accepting of
people around him as he has learnt to be accepting of and to love his sister
unconditionally.

Loss is huge. It can be as simple
as the disappointment felt at losing an ebay auction; the sadness of missing an
opportunity – or not getting what you expected.
It can be more complex; losing out on a house purchase – something we
have recently experienced – or losing a pet.
Losses can be more impactful; losing your job, losing a friend,
diagnosis with a serious illness or life - long condition, losing a parent,
losing a spouse, losing a child.

All of these things will evoke feelings
of grief and grief, as I have learnt, is frightening and all encompassing. I am not an expert on grief but throughout
this blog I have spoken about our own journey through grief and about what has
helped – or hindered us. However, the
prevailing truth in our own journey is that grief doesn’t go away. It does not shrink; time does not heal it and
you do not wake up one day to find it is gone.
There are times for me when my grief will be triggered; a smell, a sound,
something that has been said, a memory, a photograph – and for a time I will be
taken back to the weeks and months after Emilie’s death when nothing felt like
it would ever be right again. But my
ability to deal with those triggers has improved and life carries on.

Loss is an inevitable part of
life. It affects us in one way or
another every day; the loss of time being a huge example. The task is not how we get over these losses,
boxing them up neatly and moving on, but instead what we do with them. How can we allow loss to bring a gain? I had a picture in my mind this weekend of
bulbs in their dormant stage as they die back in the autumn ready to emerge in
the spring. I always feel a sense of sadness when the flowering bulbs in my
garden die back and lose their beauty.
But the anticipation is always there.
I am certain that they will return the following spring – bringing life
and beauty back into my garden. The transformation
for me this weekend was the reminder that ‘every move forward means leaving
something else behind’. We’ve had a difficult
few weeks as a family but I hope believe that it is just a season. As we leave this season behind I wait in
hopeful anticipation for what is coming next.

5 comments:

If you have a minute, I’d really appreciate it if you took a look at Emily’s Virtual Rocket. This is a serious newsblog which has been taken from e-newspapers and e-magazines from around the world, with an emphasis on transgender issues. Also, with his election, I look for articles which critique Donald Trump.

I hope you enjoy this. Please paste the following:

emilysvirtualrocket.blogspot.com

If you like it, please consider putting it among your favorite blogs. I would greatly appreciate it.

Bleach Vs Naruto, one of the most famous fighting games in the world, has a new update to you! In this version of Bleach vs Naruto 3.0 which is the same as the other updates, you will fight against maintaining SonnatTAT. Bleach Vs In Naruto 3.0, we hope you have a good time with good fun.

About Me

In July 2008 I found out I was pregnant with our first baby. We couldn't have been happier. I was ill on and off throughout the pregnancy yet this didn't cloud our excitement. However, just after Christmas 2008 we found out that our baby boy had stopped growing. Following a range of tests & close monitoring he was delivered by Cesarean Section at 33 weeks. He weighed 2 lb 13 oz and spent a month in special care. We thought the nightmare was over. In 2011 we found out we were pregnant with our second baby and in July it was confirmed that we were expecting a little girl. We were delighted and felt like the luckiest parents in the world. Again, I was closely monitored and the pregnancy seemed to be going well. I was seen at 29 weeks and everyone was happy - I was due to have a follow up scan at 32 weeks. However, two days before my scan I developed pre eclampsia and went into hospital. On investigation, no heart beat could be found and on 26th September 2011 our beautiful girl was still born. This is a diary I have kept since the day it happened. We were forced to decide how to let this moment define our lives. This is an account of our path through grief, loss and infertility and our journey into foster care. This is our story.....